Lazy cons spend 90 per cent of time doing nothing

IDLE prisoners are spending more than 90 per cent of their time in jail doing nothing.

Inmates at some of Scotland’s busiest prisons devote only two hours a day to a “purposeful activity” such as work, study or rehabilitation.

In many cases, the rest of the day is spent sitting around playing games.

The news comes despite evidence that prisoners left idle take longer to reintegrate and are potentially more dangerous.

One of the consequences of not having purposeful activity is that re-offending goes through the roof.

Victims’ rights campaigner Peter Morris

Critics attacked the revelations and called on prison chiefs to tackle prisoners’ inactivity.

Peter Morris, a victims’ rights campaigner whose sister Claire was murdered by Malcolm Webster in 1994, said: “One of the consequences of not having purposeful activity is that re-offending goes through the roof.

“If people come out of prison without skills or anything to aim for, some feel the only option is to go back into crime.”

Brigadier Hugh Munro, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, warned in his last annual report that inmates were not getting enough purposeful activity.

On the back of his concerns the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee launched a probe.

The response revealed that in Saughton Prison in Edinburgh, which houses some of the country’s most dangerous men, including triple murderer Peter Tobin and Imran Shahid, the killer of schoolboy Kris Donald, inmates do just 15 hours’ work a week.

At Polmont Young Offenders Institution and Perth and Shotts prisoners, the figure is little better, at around 16 hours.

At the other end of the scale, inmates at Low Moss near Bishopbriggs are kept busy for 27 hours a week.

Mr MacDonald said: “These are low numbers. Even the best are only managing four or five hours a day.

“It’s concerning for young offenders in particular who should be a focus for training and education.”

There are around 8,000 prisoners in Scottish jails. Each one costs taxpayers £32,000 a year.

Official figures show that more than two in five prison inmates released from custody are back in the dock and convicted within 12 months.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prisons Service acknowledged that purposeful activity hours could be higher.

He added: “We are reviewing purposeful activity and where we can increase it.

“We’ve increased it fairly substantially at Low Moss and we’re looking at how we can do that at Polmont.